How late Robbie Robertson said Rolling Stone in February 2023, Group The guitarist and songwriter has finally gotten around to finishing one of two planned sequels to his 2016 memoir. Certificate. The second book, he said, will chronicle his life and work immediately after the band's last concert and film. The Last Waltz. “I’m deep into this,” he said of the project at the time. “Now I can focus more clearly on making progress on this issue.”
Six months later Robertson died unexpectedlybut the book he was working on Insomniaforthcoming November 11th. As promised, the memoir focuses on the period from 1977 to 1980, when Robertson became close friends and housemates with director Martin Scorsese, more entrenched in the Hollywood community than with his former bandmates. The book tells of wild drug addictions, affairs and many movie-watching sessions, often over pasta or delicious food. Here are some things we learned along the way, including a few controversies that Robertson apparently wanted to settle.
Following the legend of the time, Robertson and Scorsese both had their raging bull moments.
While they both worked towards completion The Last WaltzIn the Scorsese-directed film, Robertson's wife Dominique asked him to leave his home and family: “She said her needs were being overshadowed by my work and my fame.” Robertson eventually moved into Scorsese's Malibu home, reserving a room of his own, and the two newly single guys found themselves as entangled in excess as they were in filmmaking.
Robertson writes about how he once had to go on a drug run in the middle of a Francis Ford Coppola movie night to buy a few grams of cocaine from a clean dealer who “took off his shirt and trousers to avoid getting the powder on them.” (When he returned, Coppola was angry that Robertson didn't make sure to stir the sauce, which sounds like inspiration for a scene in GoodFellas.) One day, Scorsese's assistant panicked after charging too many steep bills for an overnight stay, and in doing so, the assistant's mouth froze. Taking a $20 bill, Robertson asked the assistant to snort three lines of cocaine – and it ended up working. As Robertson recalls Scorsese saying, “Medicine is medicine.”
Courtesy of Penguin Random House
In his memoirs This wheel is on fireLevon Helm openly stated his dislike for The Last Waltzand here Robertson belatedly criticizes Helm on the same topic.
Robertson claims that as the film was finishing, Helm did not want to film additional soundstage footage that featured the Staple Singers and Emmylou Harris, and would have preferred to keep the extra money for himself. “My GodI thought he doesn't understand it at all” writes Robertson. He also claims that Helm was unhappy with the interview footage with Richard Manuel, who was pretty much in the bag, but that everyone else was fine with it. As Robertson writes early in the book, “I was tired of Levon, who was becoming increasingly difficult to deal with.”
Most of the musicians were filmed for The Last Waltz were satisfied with the results, with the exception of two (and not only Helm).
According to InsomniaVan Morrison was the first to give permission for footage of him (and his on-stage punching) to be used, followed by Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Dr. John and others. But Neil Diamond may be the least likely artist on this scene, despite having just worked with Robertson on his Beautiful noise album, “was concerned about one of the camera angles where he felt his profile wasn't flattering,” Robertson says. (Eventually, color correction smoothed out this problem.)
According to Robertson, Bob Dylan was initially hesitant to include his rendition of “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down” in the lineup, fearing that it would conflict with the imminent release of his own film. Renaldo and Clara. In the book, Dylan's brother David tells Robertson about Bob: “He has a right to worry. I don't know what he's trying to accomplish as a director.” In the end, Dylan refused, although his fears turned out to be justified: Renaldo and Clara was criticized and quickly disappeared from cinemas, but The Last Waltz remains a classic of its genre.
Buddy Holly biopic aside, Gary Busey would make a good rock star.
Robertson met and began hanging out with the good actor (and part-time drummer) when they starred together in the ill-fated 1980 film. Carney. Arriving at that time with Robertson in a New York hotel room, Busey found in his room “two single beds, very small” and became furious. After calling the hotel manager, Busey shouted in the style of a true rock destroyer: “I’m going to start throwing the TV and beds out the window!” The management complied and he was given a new room.
When Helm ridiculed Robertson in his book as “Mr. Hollywood,” he wasn't kidding.
Insomnia revels in how all-in Robertson was in the Los Angeles film world. Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty make cameo appearances, and Nicholson looks around the Scorsese-Robertson abode and says, “I love how you guys set it up here. Big speakers for the music, a cave for watching movies and charming the ladies.” Robertson interacted frequently with the usually taciturn Robert De Niro during the making of the film. Raging Bull. The book also delves into Robertson's personal life, describing his affairs with several actresses, including Jennifer O'Neal, Canadian actress Genevieve Bujold and French actress Carole Bouquet. The latter novel at times reads less like Robertson's autobiography and more like a Harlequin romance novel: “She pushed me and pounded my bare chest with the sides of her fist… Her face turned red and tears began to flow.”
Scorsese and Liza Minnelli were one wild couple.
After working together on the ill-fated screen musical New York, New Yorkthe director and the actress-singer connected. Staying at their hotel room in New York, Robertson found the room “a bit of a mess” and Scorsese's assistant picked up a knocked-over lamp and wiped a “stain on the carpet.” According to the book, the couple got into a fight when Scorsese threw a glass of red wine into Minnelli's room, which broke a chandelier. The couple laughed it off, and Robertson went about his business: “I called room service and ordered an assortment of pastries and more red wine,” he writes. A combination he and Scorsese called the “diet of champions.”
Robertson felt guilty when Scorsese nearly died of an overdose.
In 1978, Scorsese was rushed to hospital after his already damaged body gave out. “Perhaps the rock 'n' roll lifestyle I brought into Marty's life was to blame for his plight,” Robertson writes, adding that the experience helped him improve. “It finally dawned on me: I had to stop.”
Robertson had his last moment with the band.
Insomnia shows a time when musicians, now geographically divided between the East and West coasts, almost reformed, but not quite. Robertson writes about Manuel (who hanged himself in 1986) who missed an important recording and then told Robertson that he had a gun, implying that he could use it on himself. Robertson writes fondly of the time he, Manuel and Garth Hudson got together to record a version of “At Last” for Raging Bull soundtrack, but it was a fleeting reunion.
Robertson says that with his Hollywood connections, he called Helm one day to say that director Michael Apted was interested in hiring Helm to play Loretta Lynn's father in a biopic. Helm, Robertson writes, shrugged it off, and Robertson realized he no longer had anything in common with his former musical comrade. “I knew Levon was an outstanding musician, but he was limited in his vision and ambition and was happy to play music in the same old circle,” Robertson writes harshly. After the call, Robertson says: “I wanted new challenges, new quests., new blood, new roads. There would be no parting, no harsh words, no goodbyes. The group would simply disappear into the twilight, naturally.” But, as was later proven in conflicting reports such as the one here, the Group was not entirely successful. quiet that night.
